From November 2, 2015 through January 15, 2016, The Watermill Center will be accepting applications for its International Summer Program for summer 2016. The International Summer Program is the perennial program of The Center, and runs each year from mid-July through late August. Since the program’s inception in 1992, The Watermill Center has hosted over 1,000 artists from around the world. Now in its 24th year, the International Summer Program fulfills an important part of The Watermill Center’s mission of providing a unique environment for a global community of emerging and established artists and thinkers to gather and explore new ideas together. Details about the application and program are available at watermillcenter.org/programs/summer.

During the International Summer Program, which will run from July 18, 2016 to August 20, 2016, every participant contributes collaboratively on site-specific events, performing arts project workshops, and design project workshops, as well as attending lectures and taking part in landscaping and design/construction projects. Artists apply as individuals and participate in all aspects of the programmed projects and activities.The first half of the Summer Program builds toward Watermill’s major fundraiser, The Annual Watermill Center Summer Benefit & Auction (July 30, 2016), which includes the creation of site-specific outdoor art installations conceived by guest artists and summer participants, who work together, side-by-side. During the second half of the program, which includes Watermill’s largest public event, Discover Watermill Day (August 14, 2016), participants are invited to take part in table and staging workshops with The Watermill Center’s Founder and Artistic Director Robert Wilson, and collaborators from past and forthcoming international productions.

An artist works differently in an environment that he or she has helped to create and maintain. Wilson’s philosophy is that artists “start [at Watermill] with a blank book—no one has any idea what they’re going to do. The great thing is that we do everything communally.” All participants share in the responsibilities of daily life: housekeeping, cooking, cleaning, and maintaining the Watermill grounds and gardens. Daily physical labor, both indoors and outdoors, including landscaping and construction of site-specific art installations, is an integral part of the Summer Program.All participants are lodged in shared rooms either in The Center's dormitory on-site or in rented summerhouses. Vehicles are provided for transport to and from The Center within the Hamptons area. All participants spend the entire day (from 9am to 10pm, seven days a week) at The Center. All meals are prepared with trained chefs and provided on-site.Robert Wilson, his collaborators, producers, and specialists lead dozens of hands-on projects during the Summer Program. Throughout the summer, all participants share in the work, the creative and the physical, on a rigorous schedule under the direction of Wilson and a professional staff.To find out more about the program, please visit watermillcenter.org/programs/summer.About The Watermill CenterFounded by avant-garde visionary Robert Wilson in 2006, The Watermill Center is an interdisciplinary laboratory for the arts and humanities located in Water Mill, NY. The Watermill Center is dedicated to supporting artists at all stages of their career through its Artists-in-Residence Program, International Summer Program, and the newly-established Inga Maren Otto Fellowship. These unparalleled global residency programs are complemented by public events such as exhibitions, performances, open rehearsals, lectures, seminars and symposia, educational programs with schools and other local institutions, as well as tours of the building and grounds.The Watermill Center itself is a 20,000 square foot flexible working space that includes a 6,000 volume research library, galleries, rehearsal and staging spaces, workshops, offices, and residences situated on eight-and-a-half acres of artist-designed and landscaped grounds. The Watermill Center Collection of almost 8,000 art and artifact pieces spanning the history of humankind is integrated into all aspects of the building and grounds as a reminder that the history of each civilization is told by its artists.

Author

I am a performer, historian, consultant and dance writer. I am a faculty member at Hunter College, Sarah Lawrence College (Guest), Empire State College's online program Center for Distance Learning. I am also a former faculty member of The Ailey School and the Alvin Ailey/Fordham University dance major program, Kean University and The Joffrey Ballet School's Jazz and Contemporary Trainee Program. I write on dance for The Amsterdam News, Dance Magazine and various publications. Click below to read more about me at my home page - "About Me."